[ExI] Free Trade

[John Clark]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2025 at 8:20 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

*>>Have the amazing developments in AI during the last five years caused
>> anybody else to change any of their economic opinions?*  *John K Clark*
>
>

*> I changed on that to some extent.  I have always been a free-trade
> advocate and I am still.  But I changed in the way I see tariffs today is a
> reminder of the universality of Laffer theory.    [ ...] The US
> experimentation with tariffs will remind us that Laffer theory applies
> regardless of what form is the taxation.*
>

*The difference is foreign governments don't care how much money the
US extracts from its citizens through income tax, but they care very much
if the money is extracted from their citizens if it's in the form of a
tariff, and so they inevitably respond with tariffs of their own against
the US, and EVERYBODY loses. For example China had been the largest
purchaser of American grown soybeans but in September they stopped buying
them entirely and switched to buying them from Brazil, and it's estimated
that American farmers will lose about $50 billion a year as a result. And
it's not just soybeans, the total US exports to China fell 16.8% in the
three months between June and August 2025 compared to the same period last
year*
<https://www.cov.com/en/news-and-insights/insights/2025/07/us-tariffs-and-brazils-potential-response-a-guide-for-businesses>

*S**peaking of Brazil, Spike I'd be interested to hear your opinion of the
50% tariff that He Who Must Not Be Named imposed on Brazil even though the
US had a trade SURPLUS with Brazil of over $8 billion. You Know Who said he
did it because a Brazilian court found former president Jair Bolsonaro
guilty of instigating a failed coup d'état after he lost his attempt at
reelection. He Who Must Not Be Named seems to have taken that as a personal
insult, I can't imagine why.*


*John K Clark*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20251008/7c92bb5e/attachment.htm>